So true. And on that point RA, I was interested in your comment yesterday about whales, and, I suppose, by logical extension, dolphins, porpoises, seals (northern hemisphere?) and their interaction.
Read a little about that overnight (by no means comprehensive research!) and I was able to find easily enough some pieces about other wave energy (large-scale) producers doing work on whale and other sea life around their hardware/considering impacts etc.
Interesting that there is a lot of wave energy development along the west coast of the USA, which is also where some of the world's renowned marine research facilities and universities are also located - so it follows that these new developments are proceeding carefully to minimise any impacts.
Now small fish and crustaceans are opportunistic creatures, so a permanent structure, with solid moorings will in time provide a habitat for them (low impact).
Larger creatures, e.g. the grey whales which migrate all the way down the west US coast stay relatively close to shore to avoid predators, and consequently move through that rich wave energy environment.
The fisheries industry uses pingers and other devices to deter larger animals and bye catch from their netting, with limited success. In fact, I read that by introducing more sub-surface noise, that can potentially add some animal distress/confusion, and the commercial benefit of achieving a cleaner, targeted catch using pingers is inconclusive at this stage.
So, it seems, we come back to where we started - simple is best. Small portable units, easily deployed, easily monitored, easily repaired and maintained and set up in a physical array so that the assembly has a benign impact on the marine environment it resides in.
Yanchep Beach we know is firstly about one buoy - essentially testing energy production/consistency - hardware testing - looking for environmental impacts, saline intrusion effects and so on.
Once you move to array testing, you add another dimension as you are residing within a larger marine area, having different effects. So it follows that testing how much space you leave around each device becomes an essential part of that assessment (no prizes for working that out). And the breakwater proposed will further act as a larger animal deterrent (I am supposing) as well as acting to direct wave flow in a beneficial way to the system.
The Protean advantage is that you can adjust your array to different environments - considering climate, geology, marine flora and fauna, migrating animals and so on - at the same time as customising the array to optimise energy production.
Mobile larger animals with the right set up and assuming it is not practical to construct breakwaters, may well be able to just move benignly move through the array - able to identify it via sight or sonar in the same way they might recognise a reef or other geological feature.
Truly adaptive technology IMO. Looking forward to further announcements.
Cheers BC
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